Opturo® has developed VIA (Virtual Investment Analytics), the most flexible and comprehensive investment process automation platform. This platform was developed in response to an inherent need to streamline and automate the numerous large and small investment processes that are spawned to support the investment decision making process. VIA provides dramatic improvement, automation and oversight to the productivity, efficiency and quality of the data dependent investment processes. It can be used to scrub, filter, validate, analyze, and transform data to meet the full range of investment objectives.

The notable features are:

• Rapid Deployment (No Implementation – Plug & Play) : Data can be sourced from a variety of sources including Text, Excel, and Oracle, scrubbed, validated and analyzed and then exported to range of data sources including customized reports.
• Streamline & Automate: Any analysis of an investment process can be streamlined and automated using VIA.  For instance, VIA can be used to replace a large complex spreadsheet application.
• Manage & Parse Large Data Sets: Scrub and filter through millions of records efficiently.
• Scalability: Product is flexible and modular.  Facilitates the addition of new modules to streamline/automate a unique function.
• Versatility: VIA is one of the world’s most versatile financial software applications.  Its infrastructure has been used to create innovative solutions in areas ranging from performance & attribution to risk assessment.

The product is built on the premise that most financial applications share common functions.  VIA extracts unique functionality and creates modules, which can then be reused for specific purposes, processes or applications.  VIA is a collection of functional modules that can be grouped into the following categories:

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• Input Package: These modules are used to extract data from a variety of data sources including relational databases (Oracle, Sybase, etc.), Text and Excel.  VIA can also be extended to extract data from other proprietary data sources including IDC (Remote Plus), Fame, Factset, Reuters, Bloomberg, etc.
• Output Package: These modules are used to export/save data from a variety of data sources including relational databases (Oracle, Sybase, etc.), Text and Excel.  VIA can also be extended to export data to other proprietary data sources including Fame, Factset, etc.
• Transform Package: Collection of modules that are used to transform, scrub, and validate data.  The modules also support the conversion of case-series to time-series and vise versa.
• Arithmetic Package: These modules are used to perform a range of arithmetic and analytical operations.  Operations range from the simple additions of two columns of data and matrix multiplication to the more complex Beta, Standard Deviation and Drawdown calculations.
• Analytical Package: These modules perform specialized functions that range from foreign exchange conversion to calculation of time weighted return and portfolio weights.
• Solution Packages: The VIA platform can be leveraged to quickly build and deploy specialized analytical solutions. By extending the platform to incorporate specialized modules, the VIA is a rapid deployment platform for solutions in numerous areas including Performance & Attribution, Risk Assessment, GIPS compliance and Quantitative Modeling.
• Logging Package: has a Logging Utility that monitors the processes.  It can be configured to send notifications on the success or failure of a process.  On failure or warnings, it can be configured to send details of the error/warning and send the log file for the process.
• Iterator Package: This powerful feature can be used to iterate or loop through a process for each change in value. Following are its benefits:
• Manage Memory: Break up a process into manageable pieces.
• Repetitive Process: Setting up a configuration file, to iterate through a set of single setting values.
• Nested Loop: The process can be designed to iterate in a nested loop.

 

Major benefits of VIA

• Improved Investment Decision Making Process: By streamlining and automating the numerous investment processes that support the investment decision making process, the manager can make a better informed investment decision.
• Increase Productivity & Cut Costs: The flexible and modular design of the software enables the user to quickly and efficiently automate the investment process.  These processes typically range from the mundane extracting market data from vendor files to the complex quantitative/fundamental modeling & back-testing and performance, risk and research analysis/reporting. The software can leverage its flexibility and adaptability to most data-dependent investment processes while doing away with the need for the user to build custom solutions for each independent process.

• Custom Report Generation: Generation of customized investment reports in a variety of formats, including PDF, Excel, and HTML, etc., can be automated using modules of VIA.
• Plug & Play: No installation required.  VIA can be used right out the box and can streamline and automate processes from day one.
• Streamline: The software allows the users to streamline new or existing processes by re-engineering the design and methodology of processes.  If a process currently involves two or more intermediate steps before the final result or report, VIA can eliminate those intermediate steps by configuring its modules together and collapsing the process to one single step from start to finish.
• Automate: Existing manual processes which required transformation, validation, and analysis of data can now be automated by using the vast and flexible array of modules available through the software.
• Increased Oversight: Built-in logging capabilities and error alerts allow for increased efficiency in managing multiple processes with little overhead.
• Managing Large Data Sets: With its unique interactive methodology, the software allows the user to breakdown a large data set into manageable data sets for processing.  For instance, it is possible to process 10 years of daily market data for thousands of securities by iterating the process for each date.  The program can be configured to loop through the process one day at a time from a defined start date to an end date at a defined interval, in this case daily.
• Scalability: The software is designed to be flexible and modular.  In the event that the user has a process that cannot be handled by the given set of modules, the developers at VIA, depending on the complexity, can build a customized module for that process in a quick turnaround time that averages about a week.

 

 

ETL Solution

Clients can leverage VIA’s ETL (Extraction, Transformation, and Loading) capability to streamline and automate a variety of data aggregation processes.  For instance, market data from vendor files can be uploaded into the data warehouse in a matter of minutes without the need to write specialized scripts.  Using the unique Iterator technology offered by VIA, large amounts of data can be scrubbed, validated, and exported with minimal effort.  Once the process has been configured, it can then be automated to repeat the process at a defined frequency (daily, weekly, monthly etc.).

THE OPTURO ADVANTAGE

• Increased Productivity: VIA is extremely flexible and can be adapted to work from a variety of vendor data files.  The product can readily serve as a common platform for all the firm’s ETL needs.  It does away with the requirement of writing unique scripts for each data process.
• Streamline & Automate: With VIA, new and exiting processes can be simplified and automated.
• Reduces Costs: With increased productivity and automation, fewer resources need to be dedicated, hence a significant reduction in costs can be achieved.
• Scalability: Processes designed for limited amounts of data can be readily scaled to manage any increase in the amount of similar data.
• Flexible Enhancement: The software is designed to be flexible and modular.  In the event that the user has an ETL use case that cannot be handled by the given set of modules, for instance extracting data from a proprietary source such as Fame® or Factset®, the developers of Opturo can build customized modules can readily be built to handle the missing function.

 

 

 

Quantitative Modeling Infrastructure

VIA can be used to design and build infrastructures that support the Quantitative model for the management of funds.  This infrastructure enables the client to build a platform of quantitative products that have been back-tested thoroughly and quickly providing a robust environment for day-to-day running of the quantitative model.

THE OPTURO ADVANTAGE

• Flexible Data Management Infrastructure: Allows data to be gathered from many disparate sources (Fame, Factset, Excel, Oracle, etc.) into the back-test or daily Optimization environment.
• Robust and Flexible Back-test Infrastructure: Using VIA, a robust back-test environment can be built that allows a quick and detailed back-test of the alpha model.  It could take weeks to setup a back-test environment for each alpha model, but by leveraging VIA, models can be back-tested thoroughly in a matter of days.
• Streamline & Automate: New and existing Quantitative Modeling processes, including daily or monthly optimization processes, can be streamlined and automated, thus creating an efficient modeling process and freeing up resources to concentrate on model building rather than process maintenance.
• Back-test Simulation: Run multiple back-tests for a range of parameters.  For instance, the back-test infrastructure can be programmed on the fly to iterate through a range of transaction or turnover constraints.  This gives the user the ability to run back-tests for a variety of scenarios quickly and efficiently and then compare the results side-by-side.
• Performance & Risk Analytics on Back-test Results: VIA has multiple analytical tools that allow for quick performance and risk analysis of back-test results.  The Ex-Post Performance Analytics module of VIA allows side-by-side comparison of multiple steams of fund returns against a single benchmark and market return stream.
• Scalability: Processes designed for limited amounts of data can be readily scaled to manage any increase in the amount of similar data.
• Flexible Enhancement: The software is designed to be flexible and modular.  In the event that the user has an use case that cannot be handled by the given set of modules, for instance extracting data from a proprietary source such as Fame® or Factset®, the developers of Opturo can build customized modules can readily be built to handle the missing function.

 

 

Investment Process Automation

The flexibility and scalability of VIA allows any new or existing investment process to be streamlined and automated.  The product covers all aspects of any investment process from data management to analysis.

Below are some scenarios that can be automated using VIA:

• Spreadsheet Applications: VIA can be adapted to automate an investment or data process that is currently maintained using spreadsheet applications and requires hours of daily-dedicated resources.
• Fund Administration Services: VIA can be extended and adapted to automate key services provided by fund administration firms that are currently being outsourced or done manually.  For instance, the daily Cash Reconciliation of Asset Backed Securities is a process that can be automated, thus generating significant savings on organizational resources.
• Custom Report Generation: Generation of customized investment reports in a variety of formats including PDF, Excel, and HTML, etc. can be automated using modules of VIA.
• Vendor Files: The process of extraction, scrubbing, and validation of data from vendor files can be automated.
• Quantitative and Fundamental Modeling: The process of model building and back-testing can be automated.

 

THE OPTURO ADVANTAGE

• Increased Productivity: VIA’s unique infrastructure allows it to automate most investment processes that may be currently managed by dedicated resources.  Through automation, those dedicated resources can be freed-up for other tasks, thereby increasing productivity.
• Cost Savings: With increased productivity and automation, fewer resources need to be dedicated; hence, a significant reduction in costs can be achieved.
• Scalability: Processes designed for limited amounts of data can be readily scaled to manage an increase in the amount of similar data.
• Flexible Enhancement: The software is designed to be flexible and modular.  In the event that the user has an use case that cannot be handled by the given set of modules, for instance extracting data from a proprietary source such as Fame® or Factset®, the developers of Opturo can build customized modules can readily be built to handle the missing function.
• Versatility: VIA is one of the world’s most versatile financial software platforms.  Its infrastructure has been leveraged to create innovative solutions ranging from best of breed performance & attribution to risk assessment.